Tints and Dispositions

Book Launch

13 January 2018, 5-8pm

Tints and Dispositions is an exhibition catalogue for the synonymous exhibition by Gilles Massot, presented at Grey Projects from 21 March to 28 April 2017.

The exhibition featured prints and photographic material from Gilles’ first show in Singapore in 1985, and marked the launch of our curatorial focus on historicising the making of recent art— tracing the development of artistic practices through the re-exhibition and re-contextualisation of earlier under-seen works.

This publication contains images of works from the exhibition, as well as a conversation between Gilles Massot, Shubigi Rao, and Kelvin Ang, in which they reflect on Massot’s art practice over the years; discuss the early sense of freedom and spontaneity in art making in Singapore and its evolution into the present time through various influences; and touch on peripheral issues such as the colonial gaze and the medium of photography.

Join Gilles and us on Jan 13th as we celebrate the launch of Tints and Dispositions! The launch will be followed by a special rooftop screening of Singapore from BW to C v.2.0.17, a short film by Gilles Massot. Through animation of still images, computer screen capture, and some live situation shooting in and around the National Library, this 31mn movie presents an overview of the works then exhibited in 1985 and the places featured in the photographs, along with a commentary narrating the genesis of the work within the context of the emerging contemporary local art scene.

About Gilles Massot:

Gilles Massot is a multidisciplinary artist and academic whose work based on the idea of “the space between things” aims to establish links and decipher the narratives existing between disciplines, people, occurrences and parts of the world. His visual art practice more specifically deals with the theory of photography and its relation to time and space.

After studying architecture and photography in Marseille, he came to live in Singapore in 1981. His early participation in the local art scene saw him involved in a string of seminal art events, including the first editions of the Festival of Arts Fringe and the 1987 Yin Yang Festival. In the 1990S he travelled extensively across Asia and Europe, a way of living that resulted in over fifty exhibitions, and an extensive body of editorial work published in diverse magazines in Asia and Europe.

With the new century, his focus shifted onto academia and research. His book Bintan, Phoenix of the Malay Archipelago (2003) had a profound influence on his artistic process, since then often dealing with history and ethnology in the form of mix-media works. This was followed in 2006 by an MA-FA dealing with the apparition of the photographic idea in the 18th century in relation to the notion of “image” as found in the English garden. He recently completed a research on Jules Itier who did the first daguerreotypes of China, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Viet Nam in 1844-45.

He currently lives in Singapore where he teaches at LASALLE College of the Arts. His work is part of the LTA Integrated Art Program (Buona Vista Station), the Singapore Art Museum and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris among other collections. He is a recipient of the French cultural award Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.